Crown

Sylvia has pretty bad teeth. Like, so bad one of them had a gaping hole in it that consistently traps seeds and grains of rice and crap and I have to brush for five minutes to get out (no small feat with a 4-year-old). I blame myself for the situation. Instead of cutting her off, I let her nurse until she was...well, older than she should have been. A fair amount of the nursing happened at night and so her teeth are soft and rotten.

Complicating things is the fact our dental insurance sucks for kids (they have yet to send us to a dentist that both exists and sees children under the age of 12) and the unfortunate situation that Sylvia wouldn't open her mouth for a dentist anyway. I was afraid we were going to have to pay out of pocket for a pediodontist and full anesthesia to get Sylvia's teeth fixed.

Fortunately, we found a dentist who Sylvia worked well with and our insurance would deal with, and so last week Sylvia went in for a couple of fillings. That appointment went really well (Sylvia only needed nitrous oxide to be calm) and she was excited to go back this week. So excited, in fact, that she told the dentist all about our upcoming move to Australia (she and Paul loaded up an empty blue bin--their "big boat"--and floated it to their new home this morning).

Sadly, this appointment wasn't quite as easy, since it involved putting a crown over the worst of Sylvia's teeth. Amazingly, she's still talking about going to the dentist in very positive terms. I guess she realizes most dental appointments aren't so bad after all. Either that or she really likes the toys, cartoons, and laughing gas.